Kvothe is a perfectly awesome genius, has perfect parents who are tragically killed, goes off to do an Oliver Twist and lives as anTwilight for boys.

Kvothe is a perfectly awesome genius, has perfect parents who are tragically killed, goes off to do an Oliver Twist and lives as an urchin, gets sick of it so goes to wizard school to do a Harry Potter. Because he is so awesome, Draco and Snape are jealous. Oh and there are some girls who totally want his bone.

In fact, all the females in the book are there pretty much solely in the context of which bone they prefer, and in relation to Kvothe's bone.

It's fine to have young adult wish-fulfilment masturbatory books. But I didn't much like Twilight and this isn't much better.

The prose is alright though. Better than in a lot of hack young adult fantasy, but still not able to pull it up from the morass of self-fellating rubbish that is sucking it down. The Chandrian actually are very intriguing, and if there had been a character I remotely cared about in the book, then I might have been able to hang about to find out more about them.

Not to be.

I read a couple of reviews of the sequel novel, just in case that's actually good, but it sounds more self-indulgent than this one. He goes and impresses the queen of the fairies with his bone? Great.

Kote is a lot more interesting than Kwothe. Kote and Bast and Chronicler might be quite a bit of fun but there isn't enough time spent on them and far too much spent on the astounding genius teenager who sticks it in all the girls. That Chronicler ought to have put his foot down at the start with that self-aggrandizing old amateur dramatics enthusiast and told him that he'll write up his fucking story but he's going to edit it down so the childish rubbish and self-indulgence are in the bin where they should be....more

Delightful, slim, great sense of humour, clever, wry without being bitter, sharp“Blue and Gold” is the KJ Parker novel I would recommend to anybody.

Delightful, slim, great sense of humour, clever, wry without being bitter, sharp without being vicious, I defy anybody not to enjoy an evening with “Blue and Gold” and not come away grinning and thoroughly charmed.

The droll, matter-of-fact tone the narrator takes is instantly familiar to those who have read KJ’s other novels or stories. What is not familiar is the deftly playful, almost gentle mood of the tale.

It took me very much by surprise the first time I read a KJ novel and I came to the tipping point, that point of crossing beyond the pale, and it surprised me just as much that there was no such point in "Blue and Gold". But that is just the point of a shaggy dog story, or a paraprodoskian tale, isn’t it?

Abercrombie's best so far. Lean, funny, compelling, clever now and then, and surprisingly good-natured under it all.

It has pretty much everything youAbercrombie's best so far. Lean, funny, compelling, clever now and then, and surprisingly good-natured under it all.

It has pretty much everything you might expect from Abercrombie from his previous works. Except a bit better and more honed. Jokes, jokes aplenty, flawed and thoroughly enjoyable characters, cinematic but unromanticised violence, cinematic and romanticised violence, bits of horses flying off in all directions, and very entertaining throughout. No awful sex this time, but there's always next time to look forward to....more